10 Comments for My hand quickly gets real sore when playing barcodes on the guitar.What can I do to help with this?

• 1. Baby Incinerator  |  June 28th, 2007 at 11:25 pm

  That’s natural. Just keep playing and the pain will eventually go away. You could try massaging your hands for 20-30 seconds if they really hurt. It stimulates the bloodflow a little bit. Then go back to playing.

  Also, take a look at the positioning of your fingers. You really don’t need to press that hard against the fretboard. Move your fingers closer to the base of the fret and concentrate on keeping them there. That will lead to less pain.

• 2. 19G30  |  June 28th, 2007 at 11:56 pm

  With practice you’ll build strength to play ‘BAR CHORDS’.

• 3. whiskeyman510  |  June 29th, 2007 at 12:46 am

  How high off the neck are the strings?

  What gauge strings do you use?

  Too high off the neck and it requires a lot of force to fret the string. Having your bridge and your nut adjusted can fix that.

  For strings, obviously the heavier the gauge, the bassier the tone, but if you’re still learning, you may want to go with lighter gauge strings to make it easier to fret.

  Both those things can cause the pain you’re talking about

• 4. Creep  |  June 29th, 2007 at 1:07 am

  Maybe you have CTS, have your doctor check it out…

• 5. JohnsHopkins  |  June 29th, 2007 at 2:02 am

  Wow, how cool that you can play barcodes on your guitar! Do you have a scanner?

• 6. Dan B  |  June 29th, 2007 at 2:39 am

  No offense to you, but you might be doing something wrong…like twisting your hand and putting extra pressure on the ligaments in it causing it to hurt. Maybe you can try fiddling around and seeing if you can adjust you’re wrist so that you can still play bar codes on the guitar, but ease up on the pressure your ligaments are receiving. Those are a bitch to play though.

• 7. beefeater  |  June 29th, 2007 at 2:48 am

  Keep playing! Those muscles and ligaments have to get strong before the soreness will go away.

  Also, try using your middle finger to help anchor your forefinger when playing barres. This will provide extra strength and still leave two digits for chord completion.

  Another wise tip is to place the pad of your thumb squarely against the back of the neck, directly behind the playing position of your other four fingers. This improves strike and reduces reach

• 8. Mr. Due Able  |  June 29th, 2007 at 3:47 am

  Mine also. Especially when I’m playing a song that has consecutive bar chords in it.

  *Try looking up some stretches.

  *Use a Capo for certain songs if possible?

• 9. Santz M  |  June 29th, 2007 at 4:40 am

  give a break for ur fingures

• 10. Winston Wolfe  |  June 29th, 2007 at 5:31 am

  Take a break and let your hand recover. Injuries need to heal.

  Do you play acoustic or electric? Acoustics need heavier strings and higher action but you can lower the action and switch to lighter strings on an electric. I even use .010 electric strings on my acoustic and it works fine for my style and lets me bend strings easily. Bar chords are easy that way.

  Also don’t force your hand into unnatural positions. Bar chords can be more difficult if you’re standing and your guitar is hanging down waaaaay low. If you’re trying to cleanly bar across all six strings, make sure your guitar is in a position where you can get proper leverage by pressing your thumb against the center of the back of the neck. Otherwise, don’t worry about pressing down a clean bar on strings you aren’t actually playing. In fact, just muting some of the strings by letting the bar just touch the strings rather than actually fretting the notes is a valid technique for playing many rock styles.

  Relax and adjust your gear so you can relax.

  Good luck!

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